This study investigated the drainage network evolution in the upper/middle Grande River basin, focusing on
evidence of ancient connections between this basin and the São Francisco River basin in southeastern Brazil. A
combined analysis of sedimentary records, drainage anomalies, uplift axes and available thermochronological data
was performed. Features such as an anomalous low divide, a river elbow, a gorge and an ancient uplift axis evidence
that the high course of the Rio Grande, currently belonging to the Paraná River basin, was previously directed to
the São Francisco Craton (northward). The ancestral divide between the cited hydrographic basins coincided with
the uplifted axis of general direction NNW-SSE along the Neocretaceous alkaline intrusions bordering the Paraná
Basin. The rupture of the ancestral divide and the consequent river capture probably occurred after generalized
uplift in the Middle Miocene, which caused the drainage superimposition on a more regular paleosurface and the
excavation of depressions. The anomalous low divide in the region of Pimenta-MG corresponds to an expressive
morphological record of paleovale that connected the two basins currently separated. Average long-term incision
rates were estimated at about 10 m/Ma, based on the positioning of the Marília and Itaqueri formations adjacent
to the middle Grande River valley.